Local Community Learning Initiative

The Stories of Flannery O’Connor: Narrating the Terrifying Reality of Grace

April 19, 2018 | 6:30-8:30 PM
|
Bozeman, MT

Presented by Dr. Rachel Toombs

Flannery O’Connor is known and beloved for her sparely narrated stories that frequently become violent and interpretively difficult at their climactic moments. In this lecture, I will explore the impact of O’Connor’s violent narrations of the possibility of grace in the lives of her central characters and on her readers. O’Connor once noted that “Often the nature of grace can be made plain only be describing its absence.” We will explore how absence and presence reveal, without making cheap or flippant, the possibility of rendering grace in the world.

Dr. Rachel Toombs (Ph.D., Baylor University) is professor of theology and Old Testament. Her research interests intersect theology, biblical studies, and literature with a specific interest in Flannery O’Connor, philosophical hermeneutics/theological interpretation, and how reading shapes our theological imagination. Rachel is married to Professor Lance Green; together, they spend time in the outdoors of Montana and beyond with their two sweet pit rescues, Eowyn and Rosie.